Here in WA State licensees are not supposed to list incorrect numbers of bedrooms on their listings if the property is only approved for a certain number based on septic design. Below is a posting from our local NWMLS about the issue.
When inputting a listing with an on-site sewage system, the number of bedrooms you input must not exceed the number of bedrooms for which the on-site sewage system is approved. For example, if the property has four bedrooms, but the on-site sewage system was only approved for three bedrooms, then you must input three as the number of bedrooms. Both the Department of Licensing and the Washington courts have taken action against brokers (including suspension of licenses and money judgments) who have input more bedrooms than the on-site sewage system is approved to serve.
I am currently closing out a transaction whereby the listing agent DID misstate the number of approved bedrooms at 5 instead of 4 and we have the paperwork from the county noting that at the time the property was built, they were turned down for a 5 bedroom approval. I don't know about other places, but the size of the system is what determines the count and in this case we found out a 1000 gallon system is for 4 bedrooms and you'd have to have a 1250 gallon system to go up to 5 bedrooms. Extrapolated out, it's apparently 250 gallons per bedroom.
The work I did with my client when we discovered this was to confirm with the county and also to discuss with septic firms what, if anything, could be done to make it viable for 5 bedrooms in the future. The other thing we learned is that 1000 gallons is supposed to handle up to 6 adults in a house. My clients are getting married this year and while they don't have kids yet, they plan on 3 of them and also they anticipate that both of their sets of parents will come to live with them within the next 10 years. That's going to be more than 6 adults at some point...
So, we got a concession on the price of the house and took off $20,000 from the sale price.
Interestingly enough, the appraiser I spoke to said that in his analysis, the septic didn't really count much and the value was something he could prove at 4 or 5 bedrooms because with a house of this size (it's 5800 sqft) they don't assign any additional value to each bedroom and they weight it more on the square footage. Hmmmm...... I found that very odd, but I'm not an appraiser. All of this info was shared with the client who eventually felt the price concession helped to cover what might be a future cost for him if he does decide to upgrade to a 1250 gallon system.
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